


Dream of a Normal Life

by nightrose



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Boarding School, Children, Cutting, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, Mental Illness, References to Suicide, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-30
Updated: 2013-02-18
Packaged: 2017-11-11 01:57:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/473186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightrose/pseuds/nightrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harold Saxon would do anything for his husband John Smith. Since they were seven years old, he has been devoted, heart and soul. He's followed John across the country, helped him face his worst fears, and built a life with him. Now, as John retreats further into a delusional world where he is a time-travelling adventurer called the Doctor, Harry follows him into a mental hospital. He reveals his story, piece by piece, to therapist Martha Jones in the hope that she can help John recover where he has failed to, a hope that seems increasingly vain. He's given up a brilliant political career, a loving family, even his own freedom, and he may never get back the love he made so many sacrifices for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1: Harry

I’m not mad, you know. Well, to be fair, you probably don’t. I see you glancing over that chart, Ms… Jones, you said? I daresay they didn’t tell you the whole story of why I’m here. 

No, I am perfectly sane. They can’t tell you that, of course. What I did… that’s nothing a sane man does, right? What they can’t tell you is that I’m here because I want to be. 

You look young, Ms. Jones. Or do you prefer Doctor? Oh, I see. A medical student. No, no. No criticism, Ms. Jones. It’s just… this is quite a story for someone… inexperienced. 

You’re young. The young tend to be idealists- I know I was. So you will probably do nothing more than check off some boxes on that chart- paranoid, maybe, or delusions of grandeur. I could have gone free, you know. For the amount my father paid them to find me unfit to stand trial? Oh, I’m sure he could just as easily have paid some guard to look the other way. I’m here because of him. 

John. Do you know my John? I’m sure you’re not allowed to tell me… When can I see him? 

John Smith. My husband. Look through that chart of yours, Ms. Jones. He’ll have a diagnosis by now. Paranoid schizophrenic? Hallucinations? Severe depression? 

All of the above, maybe. Oh, yes, he’s your patient too. No need to break your rules and tell me- I can see it. He’s something, isn’t he? 

I need to see him. Please. 

There must be something you want. I'm sure of it. One thing you learn, when you've lived as I have- there is always something one wants. You may think yourself incorruptible. Oh, you surely do. But that, Ms. Jones, does not mean it's true. 

I've lived a lot, you see. I've gone from being a polished prep-school boy to a wanted man, and I did it all for him. 

My John. 

Perfect, brilliant, and broken. You can surely see that. He's shattered, Ms. Jones. But you don't know why. 

Is that it? 

You want me to tell you. 

Oh, how sweetly idealistic you really are. All you want is to help us, help us poor mad folk, is that it? If we'll only tell you… 

Fine then. Let's strike a deal. You let me see John, and I'll tell you whatever you fucking want. 

No, no, not just a promise. I talk to you for an hour, you let me see him for an hour. Rinse and repeat. 

We can start now, if you'd like. I don't mind beginning. 

But rest assured, Ms. Jones, I am a most stubborn man. If you can't live up to your side of the bargain, I'll never talk again. I mean it. I will sit in this damned madhouse for the rest of my life and never say another word. 

So are we agreed? 

Very well. 

The beginning, shall we? They do always say it's the very best place to start. John and I met when we started school. Eight years old, the both of us. 

Eight years old. 

He was beautiful, even then. I think I was in love with him at first sight. It sounds tacky, I know, but… 

Oh, you're a psychologist- a student, at least. You must understand- it's very simple. 

I come from a wealthy family. We were nouveau riche about 200 years ago, and have since adopted the pretentiousness of our betters, but there hasn't been adequate time to burn through the familial coffers. Mama was an heiress, and Papa a successful politician. They sent me to the most prestigious boy's school in the nation so I could mingle with all the right people   
And so, of course, I chose to mingle with the wrongest person I could fine. John was my roommate, but there was really not a ton of need to talk to him one-on-one. And yet I found myself seeking out his company whenever possible. 

My parents disapproved. My parents disapproved most strongly, and that just delighted me, as I'm sure you can imagine. By the end of the first Parent's Night, my mother was saying polite, quiet things like, "Harry, dear, it's not that we don't think it's important to mingle with the other classes…" and "Charity work is very important, Harry, but I feel you may be restricting your opportunities…" 

By the second Parent's Night, I was bringing John along to the expensive dinners my parents orchestrated for me. 

And in my quest to irritate my parents, I realized that I adored John. It was quite sad, the way I hung on his every word. He was so clever. John never failed to make me laugh, you know. He knew so many things. All about mythology and history. He spoke four languages by the time I met him- it takes a lot to get a scholarship like his. Full ride, meals, room, everything. That's why he wasn't considered appropriate company by my parents. But he charmed them, eventually, like he charms everyone. I think they've even forgiven him for marrying me.

 

John. My John. 

He cried every night. I never asked why. Children have ways of knowing when they're not ready to understand. But one night he climbed into my bed and said, "Kos, please-" 

That's what he called me. My nickname. It came from one of those Russian fairytales he adored. An enchanter- Koschei the Deathless. He said… he said… "It's not that I want you to be evil, Harry. Or that I think you are. But I don't ever want you to die." And then he'd press his face into my neck, and kiss me… just here. "My Koschei," he'd say. "Right? You and I together? For always?" 

"For always," I'd promise him. "Until the end of time." 

We were children. We didn't know… we didn't know what it meant. 

We had our secrets, our sweet innocent secrets together. He called me Koschei and I called him Theta Sigma because that was what was written on the thrift-store polos he wore out of uniform. We would spend nights sitting up talking, delighted at our own insolence when we saw the clock turning from nine- which was lights-out- to ten and eleven and finally midnight.   
We weren't ashamed, though, of the way we slept together. 

Don't make that face at me, Ms. Jones. Not like that. We were eight years old, for God's sake. 

No, he would clamber into my bed, all long legs and wide eyes, and kiss my neck and say, "Please, Koschei. I get so scared at night." 

And I would hold him, just hold him close, and breathe in the smell of his hair and tell him… 

"I'll always be here when you need me. Always." 

I didn't know what that promise meant when I made it, Ms. Jones. But I'm going to keep it. 

I've always been a man of my word.


	2. John

I let time wash over me. Let warm blue eternity taste my skin and know my self. I ride alone through forever because as long as I am alone I cannot shatter again. 

In the far distance, a long-lost voice calls me back, as he has been calling for so many years. It was hard, at first, to leave him. It seemed the wrongest of all things, a twisting revulsion in my soul, to sail away from him and towards the greatest adventure.   
Now it is easy to be alone.

It is the easiest thing of all. Although my heart cries out for company-

Hearts. My hearts cry. Two hearts, I can feel them both beating, beats of four, one two three four- and I cannot hear a voice calling me. I cannot hear the far distant whisper of my name-

Not my name. Once perhaps I knew the man this man is missing but I was never John Smith, I was never-

I won’t, I won’t, stop asking-

I’m being chased. Chased by Cybermen, metallic and groaning, shouting that they’ll make me like them, and I run.

I run so fast and so far that I must be free, and next to me is Rose, golden and lovely and free. My little Rose.

I held her in my arms once, when she was so small- that isn’t right. She was nineteen when we met. No, just a baby, in dear Jackie’s arms and I had to say goodbye to her, had to say goodbye to everyone because I’m not safe…

I will save her. I will save everyone. I am a hero, the one standing between good and evil. I will make the world safe and today, no one will die, no one will call my name in the back of my head and pull me back to a world where I am no one, I am weak, I can be hurt so easily and I can save no one, no one, and especially not myself.

No, I do not turn back, because if I turn back I am lost. If I turn back this world, the real world, is shattered. If I listen to that sweet voice that calls me so gently, I will be pulled away from what is real. I will lose Rose and the ground beneath my feet and the TARDIS that is just now in view and everything. I will be nothing at all. Alone again forever and ever or worse.

Because worse than being alone is being with him because I can’t lose him. Oh, if I lost Rose, it would be hard. Every time I have been left alone- and there have been so many- has been hard. But losing him would be more than hard, it would be unthinkable. Better to deny myself any part of him than to risk letting him go after learning how sweet it is to have him.

Stop, I cry out with all my hearts Stop asking me to come back to you I can’t I can’t too much I can’t-

And then there is blessed silence, and Rose and I run on and on.

I run, heart- hearts- burning, legs on fire, my whole body consumed. Run. Because the further I run the further behind me he is, the safer I am.

I cannot let him call me back. I cannot let myself love, not him, not Rose, not a single soul in every universe there has ever been because what you love, you lose, and I can’t lose anything more. It’s been too much already. Too much gone, too much that is precious breaking in my hands that are too rough to hold things close too much that I need being pushed away because I do not deserve that kind of happiness what I deserve is less even than this. The simple joy of running this way is beneath me, the pleasure of the company of a good dear friend should be denied me, and I must never take what I want most, I must never go back to him, must never let him catch me, because I don’t deserve him. Bit by bit, piece by piece, I have destroyed his life. If I go back to him, how much worse I will make things. 

No, I must not go back to him, because no matter how much he seems to want me back, he shouldn’t. And if I run long enough, someday, he will stop chasing me.

How much better that would be.

I would not have to fight so much.

He would not have to care anymore about me, after all the wrong I’ve done him.

If only that could happen one day. If only he would forget me.


	3. Harry

I don’t want to talk about it, Ms. Jones. 

Oh, very well, if you insist. But this counts for our hour, agreed?

He was… not particularly responsive. 

If I must… very well.

He didn’t respond at all. It was like he wasn’t even there. This is… not an infrequent circumstance, unfortunately. 

I’d estimate… twenty percent of the time? His state can vary most… substantially. But, especially when left alone, without stimulation, he tends to lapse into this sort of non-responsiveness. He becomes so engrossed in his fantasy world that it’s almost as though he’s comatose or unconscious. Usually, he doesn’t respond at all in that state. Um. Today, maybe, it was…  
Well, he flinched away a little bit, when I tried to touch him. It was… upsetting, naturally. He’s often not very comfortable with contact, but he has to be more conscious, more responsive, usually, for me to get that kind of reaction. Or… any reaction.

Yes, yes. Of course, it could be completely different by- fifty-three minutes from now, when I see him next. His behavior is very quickly and very commonly changeable, and there’s no predicting when he’ll be non-responsive like this, or panicked, or completely cogent…

Yes, he does have those periods. Sometimes he’s completely normal. 

Occasionally. He does remember the overall framework of his hallucinations, which- John has a very active fantasy world, which he creates as an escape from reality. The overall story, which I can tell you later- I think we should finish talking about the real world first, if you agree- generally focuses around him as an itenerant hero of sorts. Saving people, but never staying anywhere too long. He doesn’t always remember specific instances from these hallucinations, and he can rarely tell me what he’s most recently been… experiencing, I suppose, because these things seem very real to him… but he does, overall, remember what the breaks from reality are like when he returns to a more normal state of mind. 

Recently, however, he’s been less and less conscious, less and less often. I think he’s just… getting used to his coping mechanisms. It’s not the first way he’s ever tried to hide from his pain- in fact, my whole purpose in his life, initially, was as his coping mechanism. And his pattern with this sort of thing, whether it’s time spent with me, or sex, as it was for a while, or self-harm, which was in his early teens, or in this delusional state, is to use it a little at first, to deal with his traumas, and then, when he realizes it works, to depend on it more and more until he stops being able to function at all without it, at which point he adopts a new mechanism, sometimes instead but more often in addition. 

Anyway. Where were we? Ah yes, back at the dear old Prydon Academy, eight years old in a dorm room bed.

Funny, but I never believed them when they said I’d look back at those as the best years of my life… 

Anyway, we were the best of friends. Probably much closer, even then, than a normal schoolboy friendship. What had begun as a way to annoy my parents, for me, and as a way to seek some simple human comfort for him, became much more. 

It wasn’t just that we spent all our time together. We wanted to. We found endless pleasures in each others’ company. Never-ending humor, long hours of fantastic games, running and sports but also games of the imagination… we even enjoyed studying together. John was terribly well-read, even then, and he managed to convince me that doing my schoolwork was occasionally worthwhile. Whereas I stopped the other children from picking on him. He was a natural target for bullies, being skinny as a rail, bookish, pale, and poor. A most unfortunate combination for the third grade, and in fact for many years afterwards, but I was always naturally popular as a child… a sort of casual charisma that many were drawn to. It likely came from my unnecessarily high opinion of myself in those days, as I’d never had any reason not to be a bit self-obsessed. 

I was spoiled rotten when I was younger, and I think that led me to it. Anyway, that’s not very relevant.

So, we had a few very happy years. Playing together, as children do. I knew that John had a very different life than me, but I was young enough, innocent enough that it didn’t matter to me. I knew instinctively that he preferred not to discuss his home life, and I did as he silently wished. Even then, I was trying my best to take care of him. 

My apologies- we didn’t get very far this time, did we? I got terribly off-track.

You’re right, that is the point. Well, Ms. Jones, I’ll leave you with your notes for an hour.


	4. Chapter 4

Exhaustion. Blackness like the endless parade of the sky, but unbroken by the light of stars. Unbroken by the light of dreams or the darkness of memory. I close my eyes and let myself drift into sleep and I do not dare anything.  
I always sleep alone. Even at times like now, when sweet Rose is so near, my bed is always empty.

I do not deserve the joy of such companionship. As lonely as I may be at night, the right thing to do is to deny myself comfort. All I have to offer is pain. All I can do is suck people down with me, down to the black abyss of me.  
No matter how far I run, I carry death with me.

And so I always sleep alone.

It hurts, but a lot of things hurt. I am used to loneliness. 

I am also used to accidentally hurting those I get too close to.

Both of those things are very hard to bear, but one only hurts me, and the other leaves innocent hearts broken, innocent lives lost. And I have enough pain on my conscience and enough blood on my hands.

So I lie alone in my bed, listening to the TARDIS hum around me, and it’s enough. It’s just barely enough that I don’t go mad from the loneliness as I look out my small window into the empty empty black sky.

Sometimes, though, sometimes if I clear my mind completely, and that’s rare enough, sometimes on nights like tonight, I can close my eyes and lie totally still and I am so tired that I think nothing at all. I listen to the rhythm of two hearts, one two three four, and I feel almost as though they are not both mine. I feel almost like I am one man, one normal human man, and the other heartbeat I can feel isn’t mine at all. The other heartbeat belongs to someone else, someone warm and strong pressing their chest against my back and wrapping their arms around my waist and holding me safe and tight. Sometimes I almost feel the heat of a body against mine, and once in a while the phantom brush of lips against my neck.

And every once in a while, just as I drift into sleep, the strangest thing happens.

I smell a familiar smell. It’s like the red grass on his father’s estates and the sweet apples he loved to eat and the special, unique scent of him, of that boy I loved many years ago. 

I know he isn’t really here. He will never really be here again. Of all the people in all the universe, he is the very last one I could ever allow to get close to me.

But half-sleeping fantasies don’t do any harm, and sometimes I think they are all that keep me going. Sometimes I run as fast as I can and as far, not truly because I am trying to do good, but because when I am this weary, I can feel him close.

Sometimes I miss him so, so much.

And so I close my eyes, and I let myself feel him. I don’t let anything, not a word or even a thought, break the silence. I force my mind into quiet and focus on the rhythm of hearts beating. At first, I hear my own two hearts. One two three four. Mine. And then, I hear his. One two three four five six seven eight.

I feel his heat and smell him, and I feel, for once, strangely safe.

And then, for a second, just before I fall into true sleep, our four hearts are two. One two three four. Him and me, human, mortal, normal. Able to dream of loving and living together. Able to have something more than pain and loneliness.

As sleep hits me, carrying me away, I hear something. 

I feel his breath in my ear and then I hear, whispered gently, “I love you so much. Please come back to me, John.”  
My last thought is “That’s not my name.”

The TARDIS wakes me up early the next morning. I blink a few times in the bright light and go to get some breakfast.

Something tingles on the edge of my memory. Something happened last night, something different, something special.

There were words. Just as I fell asleep…

That’s impossible. I was alone when I fell asleep. I always am.

I must be remembering wrong. Maybe I’m imagining a dream as reality. That’s certainly more likely than someone being in my bed last night- except that I never dream when I’m that tired, and in fact I try not to dream at all. Dreaming makes me have strange and dangerous longings, and when I have run enough, I dream of nothing.  
So then what is this voice I remember in my head? 

I focus on spreading jam on my toast and not thinking about it. I’ve become rather an expert in not thinking about things over the years, and I put that expertise into practice quite freqently. Instead of thinking, I say a cheerful hello to Rose and put on a pot of tea.

I can’t afford to let myself dream. I can’t afford to let myself wonder. I can’t affort to let myself slow down.   
I live on the edge of the great abyss. If I stop, I die. I can’t let that happen.

It would be so easy to fall.


	5. Harry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings in effect for this chapter: self-harm, attempted suicide

Very well. I think he almost recognized me.

He was asleep when I first arrived, but he seemed to know I was there. He sleeps a lot, and that’s sometimes a time when he’s totally out of it, and sometimes a time when I can get through to him a little.   
Well, I sat behind him and let him lean on me a little, and he sort of… leaned into me. I think he could feel me there. And when I said his name, he actually spoke to me.

Um, he said, “That’s not my name.” But, it was… a logical response to what I’d said. Not true, but not nonsense, either. Which is not always the sort of thing that can happen, with John. Honestly, him speaking at all means it’s a good day.

So that’s it, really. I just held him for an hour while he slept. And then I came back in here. Is it sad that I’m grateful for it? Because that’s more than I get most of the time. I’m not usually lucky enough to have him in my arms.

Yes, Ms. Jones. I really do love him very, very much.

Forever. If that’s what it takes. If he never gets better… if I knew for certain, today, that he would never again speak a single word to me, never be lucid for a single second, I would still be here, because if my presence gives him the least little bit of even subconscious comfort, that is what I owe him. If I can protect him, with or without his knowing, from anyone or anything, that is what I owe him.

I owe him for the happiness he gave me, and for the wrongs I did him.

I owe him enough to not let him down again.

Where was I? Ah, yes. The happy years.

They ended, abruptly, when John was ten. 

Of course, they weren’t as happy for him. Only for me, because of my splendid ignorance. I didn’t know the pain he was in.

Yes, I was only a child. But I was so close to him. Closer to him than anyone else, and he to me.

I should have seen that something was wrong, but I didn’t. I let him be there, suffering silently, for two whole years.

And then one day, I got back from Pre-Algebra and he was hanging from the ceiling fan with his tie wrapped around his neck. I pulled him down myself and held him in my arms. He begged me not to tell anyone so I didn’t, once I made sure that he wasn’t really hurt. He didn’t do it right. He’d tied the knot in the front, you see, so his neck didn’t break. He just hung there, slowly choking…

I made him promise not to try it again, not ever again, and he did. And then I asked him why.

Why he would do that to himself, but also why he would do that to me when I loved him so much. 

He put his arms around my neck and hugged me back and said, “I’m sorry, Harry. I’m sorry, I didn’t want to hurt you.”

He never wanted that. 

Even know. If he knew- if he knew how it hurts me, to see him like this- he wouldn’t…

He wouldn’t tell me why, wouldn’t tell me anything. I cried and cried and he didn’t. He didn’t even seem upset. He just wanted not to be alive anymore.

And he was ten years old.

I have a picture, from not too long after… I haven’t saved a lot of things, but I do have the pictures.

Yes. That’s him. Look how young he is. How innocent he seems.

He never told me what it was. Why it was, that he wanted to hurt himself.

I knew it wasn’t just the once. He didn’t make another suicide attempt, not after he started to believe it would really hurt me to lose him, but…

I couldn’t watch him every minute. Couldn’t protect him from everything.

He cut himself, with razors or paper or by scratching his own skin until he bled if he couldn’t get at anything else. He pinched his skin till it bruised and slammed the door shut on his fingers and dropped things on his toes. He couldn’t stop punishing himself, and I didn’t know what for.

It was terrifying. I didn’t know when I was going to walk into that room and find him dead. But I was pretty sure it was going to happen, sooner or later. That someday, I would lose track of him at exactly the wrong moment, and he would…

I didn’t want to lose him. And I told him that. I did. But I couldn’t forget that I was going to, sooner or later. That I wouldn’t be able to keep him.

I knew he loved me, just like I loved him.

But I also knew that wasn’t enough.

At night we both felt safe. When I could feel him pressed against me, when I knew he was there in my arms, I didn’t have to be afraid. He was there, mine and safe and cared for. I knew he was alive and well.  
But during the day, when we had separate classes, or lunch at different times, or for God’s sake when he had to go to the bathroom on his own…

I was convinced it would be the end of him.

For a long time I didn’t know what to do about this. I couldn’t imagine a life without him, my best, my only friend. Children are so prone to drama, and I was an especially morbid one. And I had no idea, truly, what I would do without him.

Until one day, the year we were eleven, I realized.

If John died, I would simply follow him.


	6. Chapter 6

My eyes open, and I see him. He’s looking at me, eyes wide, full as they always are with nothing but love and care and that endless, unbearable pity.

“Love? Are you with me?”

I blink a few times. “Yes. Yes, Harry, I think—yes, I am.”

“May I-“ he opens his arms, ready to embrace me, but then hesitates. I nod, and he pulls me into his lap, wrapping his arms tight around me. He rests his head on top of mine, brushing a kiss to the top of my head.

“I’m with you,” I repeat, stunned. “Has it—How long has it been?”

He sighs. From that alone, I know it’s been a while. And then he answers. “Six months. Give or take a few days.”

“Six—six months?” That’s my longest stretch of insanity since my initial attack of it. “What—did something happened?”

“You—it’s not important.”

“Obviously it is.”

“You may have—kidnapped someone.”

“Kidnapped?”

“Yes. Melody Pond. Her parents were very understanding about the whole thing. Rory and Amy. Lovely people. Very kind, and they didn’t want to press charges.”

“Oh, God.” I try to pull away from him, but he doesn’t let me. “Did I—“

“You didn’t hurt her, sweetheart, don’t be absurd. I know you wouldn’t. You know you wouldn’t.”

“I stole someone’s baby! How can you say you know what I would or wouldn’t do, Harry, clearly I’m utterly unpredictable!”

“You didn’t knick her off the street, and it was my fault anyway.” 

“Well, where did I get her then?”

“Her dad was a nurse at the hospital where I went to pick up your meds. I left you with him for a while. Just—“

“Needed a minute to yourself?” I know he won’t admit it, but I hardly hold it against him. He’s human, he has a right to a second of his own—a life of his own, for that matter, though I’ll never take it.

“Just to get coffee. That was all.”

“Great, so I stole a baby out of hospital, not off the street. That’s much better.”

“It wasn’t—I shouldn’t have left you, John. They knew you were… ill, but not how much. I didn’t really tell them. Okay? So it’s my fault. I should have stayed with you.”

“So I stole a baby, and then—“

“Full breakdown. No idea where you were. Not a clue. Delusional for months. Sleeping twelve and fourteen hours a day. And though the Ponds didn’t press charges, they did—well, they had to call the police, we had to call the police, to find you. And they dredged up all the old charges.”

I press my hand over my mouth. “Oh, god. What happened? Did they—you didn’t—“ I’ve told him, again and again, on the rare occasions I’ve been conscious, that he ought to tell them it was me. They’d believe it, and I’m hardly liable for my actions. Even if I didn’t get off based on circumstances alone, I wouldn’t be found fit to stand trial.

“Luckily or not, as it were, they found you unfit to stand, and—well, I may have put on a bit of a show for them. Technically, we are both wards of the state. Mentally incompetant.”

“So right now we’re in—“

“A mental facility. Somewhere outside Leeds, as far as I can tell. That’s where they picked us up, anyway. But we’re all right. And we’re together.”

I’m not distressed by this news. I’ve gotten fairly good at regulating my emotions when I’m able to, when I’m conscious and know what’s going on around me. When I’m not, obviously, I have little idea at all what’s going on and I’ll often unconsciously trigger myself into much longer sessions of complete senselessness. But right now, I’m able to breathe slowly, concentrate on the feeling of my husband embracing me, and relax. I let the panic slide away, and I stay here, in the real world, with Harry. 

“I’ve been meeting with a psychologist here. The deal is one hour with her, spilling our whole tragic story, in exchange for an hour with you.”

“But I haven’t been conscious.”

“As if that makes a difference. Sweetheart, I have to see you. To know you’re all right. For as long as you’ll let me.”

I look up at him, searching his eyes for the answer. “Harry? If I asked you to go, would you?”

“What?”

“If I told you I wanted you to leave, would you leave me?”

“I… what are you saying?”

“I’m ruining your life. I’ve ruined your life. You were going to change the world. You could have been Prime Minister one day, you could have had a happy marriage, you could have had children, and you’ve given up everything to be stuck with an incurable invalid forever. You’ve let yourself be arrested for me. How am I supposed to live with that?”

“You didn’t ask for this. Not for any of it. You’ve never asked me for a thing, John. And so I’ll have to give it to you anyway. I have to know what you need from me. Because you are the love of my life. You are so special and precious and no one can see it, sweetheart, because you’ve been hurt so badly that you have to hide yourself away from the world—even from yourself. I may be the only one who knows, but I do know. And I refuse to believe that you are incurable. Quite the opposite, love. I will do whatever it takes to cure you. If I have to go to the ends of the earth, I will. And I do have a happy marriage. I am happily married to you, and busily employed with the most important job anyone could have, and that is taking care of you.”

I blink away tears. “Damn you, Harry, how do you always know the right thing to say?”

“Practice, my love. Long practice, and great inspiration. Because what could be more important than this?”

“So you really wouldn’t leave?”

“If you were truly able to be out in the world on your own, and you had…” He hesitates for a long time, then finds the words he’s looking for. “Like I said, right now, I’m the only one who realizes quite how precious you are. If that weren’t true, if you were to be—cured—I mean, when you are. When we know that you are healthy and well, if there’s someone else who recognizes you for what you are, if there’s someone else who wants to protect you and love you, and if you would rather be free of me and all the dark memories that are attached to me, all the bad times we’ve been through, all the mistakes I’ve made—why, then, I would go. I can’t promise I would bow out gracefully, but I would not burden you with me if you didn’t need me.”

“What kind of monster do you think I am? Harry, you’ve given up your whole life for me.” He tries to interrupt, and I press a finger over his lips. “Hush, let me. You’ve done everything for me. You’ve loved me as no one has ever been loved, and you think—you think I would turn around and leave you the moment I could truly be with you?”

“I don’t. Really. It’s just—sometimes, when you—and I don’t mean to make things worse, God knows I never mean to hurt you, but I feel sometimes as if you don’t—as if you don’t want to come back. That the only reason you don’t is because—“

I kiss him, hard, silencing him with the press of my lips. “No. No, that isn’t true. Trust me. I swear—by everything—that I am doing everything I can to come back to you. Every minute. Every second. I dream of the universe, Harry, and all I want is you.”


End file.
